Part 73 (2/2)

She herself is stout, short-legged, incapable of any swift agility of action; a brief run leaves her panting; she would be grotesque as a statue; and her internal housekeeping is by no means as efficient as a doctor would approve.

She never thinks of these things.

The same farmer will show you his stock--sheep, swine, fowls, cattle; point out their superiority and talk learnedly of the best methods of improvement. The same housewife will show you her fine needlework, her fine cooking, and discuss patterns and recipes with gusto. Both the farmer and his wife took prizes at the county fair--he for pigs and poultry, she for pies.

Now look at their children.

She gathers little Johnny into her motherly arms. ”Johnny was always delicate!” she says tenderly. ”He's a little backward because he's delicate. Mother's boy!” And she kisses his smooth head as he nestles up to her. ”Adelaide had better go and lie down. Adelaide's not strong. They work her too hard in school.”

Jim looks st.u.r.dy enough, and makes noise enough, but the expert perceives that Jimmy has adenoids, breathes through his mouth, is really undersized.

Here is the oldest boy, a tall, heavy fellow; but what a complexion!

”Quite natural for boys of that age; yes, he's real sensitive about it.”

Well? They are ”good children.” When properly dressed, they compare favorably with other people's children.

None of them would take any prizes in an exhibition of Human Stock.

There are no such prizes. As to the exhibition--that is continuous. We are so used to the exhibition, and to its pitiful average, that we have no ideals left.

Neither the farmer nor his wife ever thought of a Human Standard; whether they came up to it, or if their children did, or of how they might improve the breed.

We take humanity as we find it. We admire ”beauty,” or what we call beauty; but we don't care enough for it to try to increase it. We are concerned about our health after we lose it, but give small thought to lifting the average. Young men vie with one another in athletic sports, and have certain ideals, perhaps, of ”military bearing,” and the kind of chest and chin a man should have; but all their ideals put together do not make us as beautiful and strong as we have a right to be.

Then arise those who come to us talking largely of eugenics; wanting us to breed super-men and super-women; talk[ing of improving] the race by right selection. There is a lot of sense in this; we could do wonders that way; of course, if we would. Certain obstacles arise, however.

Men and women seem to love each other on other grounds than physical superiority. Those physically superior do not always have the most superior children. Then, again, the physically superior children do not always hold out through life, somehow.

This method of breeding and selection is nature's way. It works well--give it a chance; but it has to be accompanied by a ruthless slaughter of the unfit, and takes thousands upon thousands of years. We have a method worth two of that.

We can improve the species after it is born.

That's the great human power, the conscious ability to improve ourselves and our children. We have the power. We have the knowledge, too--some of us have it, and all of us can get it.

The trouble is, speaking generally, that we haven't the standards.

Here is where our mothers need new ideals, and new information. A person who is going to raise cattle ought to know something about cattle; know what to expect of cattle, and how to produce it. Suppose we had a course in Humaniculture to study. We have Agricultural colleges; we study Horticulture, and Floriculture, and Apiculture and Arboriculture. Why not have a Humanicultural College, and learn something about how to raise people?

Such a course of study would begin with the theory, ill.u.s.trating by picture and model; and later should have practical ill.u.s.tration from the living model, in nursery and school. The graduate from such a course would have quite a different idea of human standards.

She would know the true proportions of the human body, and not call a No. 2 foot ”beautiful” on a No. 10 body. She would know what the real shape of the human body is, and that to alter it arbitrarily is a habit of the lowest savagery. The shape of the body is the result of its natural activities, and cannot be altered without injury to them. She would learn that to interfere with the human shape, moulding it to lines that have nothing to do with the living structure and its complex functions, is as offensive and ridiculous as it would be to alter the shape of a horse.

Should we not laugh to see a horse in corsets? The time is coming when we shall so laugh to see a woman.

She would learn to measure beauty, human beauty, by full health and vigor first of all, right proportion, full possession of all natural power, and that the human animal is by nature swift, agile, active to a high degree, and should remain so throughout life. So trained, she would regard being ”put on a car” by the elbow as an insult, not a compliment.

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